(Murfreesboro) Middle Tennessee State University's spring 2021 commencement ceremonies are returning to Murphy Center May 7-9 for a three-day, 10-event graduation weekend.
The plan is to keep 2,000-plus undergraduate and graduate students, their six guests each, and 10 groups of supportive faculty, administrators and staff safely apart, but together, and all in mandatory masks, to mark the graduates’ accomplishments.
The university's Registrar’s Office, currently led by Registrar Susan Fieldhouse and Associate Registrar Cindy Johnson, coordinates the massive effort each spring, summer and fall semester, relying on help from the University Provost’s Office, Murphy Center staff and multiple other departments across campus to make it all happen.
This spring, for the first time, students had to RSVP to reserve a spot in the limited space and times allotted for each college’s ceremony — or ceremonies, in some cases.
Instead of a capped-and-gowned procession, they’ll have assigned seats so they’re in the right order when their names are called to take their walk across the stage.
“That's our biggest challenge, to make sure everybody stays in the right place in line,” Fieldhouse said. “We know that students are going to miss the traditional procession, but that’s just something we could not work out to meet the social distancing requirements and the time (limitations).
“But I hope they're pleased that they have the traditional setup with the stage, and the president and the provost will be up there and their dean. They won't be able to shake hands on stage, but they will get to cross the stage and get their diploma cover and their photo made.
“They’ll have welcome remarks from their dean and not the traditional commencement speaker, because we’re trying to keep every ceremony to about an hour since we have so many in a day to be able to exit and fill up Murphy Center again.”
Growth led to graduation tickets, multiple ceremonies
The office's staffers have handled graduation logistics for decades, making sure that everything’s in place to culminate in each student’s walk across the Murphy Center stage since the university moved its commencement ceremonies to the then-new facility in 1973.
Booming student enrollment in the 1990s and early 2000s led to overflow graduation crowds each semester in the 10,000-seat multipurpose center.
By 2003, MTSU had to limit its “record numbers” of 1,500-plus graduating students to eight ticketed guests each and seat their extras in Alumni Memorial Gym to watch a simulcast.
In May 2005 the university added a second ceremony to manage graduation day for its eight degree-granting colleges. In May 2016, the College of Graduate Studies added its separate Friday-afternoon ceremony to MTSU’s spring graduations, traditionally each year’s largest event.
Then, in February 2020, MTSU, and the rest of the world, turned inside out.
Fieldhouse, Johnson and their colleagues studied other universities’ pandemic commencement plans — and kept looking — for ideas to help graduating MTSU students.
Spring 2020 graduation was a virtual one, leaving graduates at home to celebrate while President Sidney A. McPhee congratulated them via videotape and their names and degrees scrolled by on the webcast.
The August Class of 2020’s graduation-day experience was the same: wearing caps and gowns from a special “True Blue Graduation Box,” hand-packed by MTSU staffers, and watching at home.
An unexpectedly warm and sunny November Saturday gave MTSU’s fall 2020 graduates a break: Students sat 6 feet apart, masked, in Floyd Stadium for MTSU's first outdoor commencement ceremony in 48 years.
They stood and waved to their supporters in the stands on the opposite side of the football field, visible on large screens with the help of crews from the Department of Media Arts.
Spring grads are guests’ best info source
MTSU’s first Class of 2021 is scheduled to receive their final seating assignments by email today, April 30. They’ll be picking up their caps, gowns and guest tickets at the university’s Phillips Bookstore and Student Union Ticket Office today through next Friday, May 7.
They’ll still need to tell their supporters which ceremony to attend or watch online, however, because distributing 2,000-plus participating graduates across 10 hourlong events isn’t necessarily creating 10 equal, 200-student-per-college ceremonies.
Currently, MTSU’s College of Behavioral and Health Sciences is scheduled to present degrees May 7 in ceremonies set at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. Central, while College of Liberal Arts students will graduate at 4:30 p.m. Central.
On Saturday, May 8, degree presentations in the Jones College of Business, College of Education and the College of Basic and Applied Sciences will be spread across ceremonies set for 9 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. Central.
On May 9, College of Media and Entertainment and University College students will participate in ceremonies set for 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., respectively.
Students receiving master’s, educational specialist and doctoral degrees from the College of Graduate Studies will participate in the college’s ceremony for their academic specialty. For example, a student earning a Ph.D. in history will be part of the College of Liberal Arts event.
The weekend's final ceremony, set for 4:30 p.m. May 9, is reserved for those Class of 2020 graduates who weren’t able to participate in last year’s events.
All 10 ceremonies will be streamed free and live May 7-9 at https://livestream.com/mtsu and on MTSU’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/
The university will provide closed-captioning services for the live video streams as well as an interpreter on the stage for each ceremony.
McPhee and Provost Mark Byrnes also will speak to the graduates and their supporters at each event. The official spring 2021 commencement program, listing all the graduates by college and noting their honors, is available at http://ow.ly/uld730rGe7d.
Pandemic planning proves what works
The graduation organizers said their pandemic planning has taught them that the old saying about not fixing unbroken things also applies to MTSU commencements.
“If you go back and look at our numbers, we’ve had excellent turnout for our graduation ceremonies, and we kind of had an idea of how many, based on numbers, would not participate and would plan accordingly with historical data,” Johnson said with a laugh.
“I think we've learned that works well for MTSU. The RSVP part is a tremendous amount of added work for us, for sure. We're ready to get back to the previous way when we can.”
The May 2021 graduating class at MTSU, totaling 2,490 students, comprises 2,155 undergraduates and 335 graduate scholars.
That second figure includes 27 master’s degree candidates, 25 education-specialist degree recipients and 23 doctoral candidates, along with 26 graduate students who’ll receive certificates for their advanced study. One undergraduate student also is scheduled to receive a certificate.
May 8 will be the official graduation date listed on all diplomas, which will be mailed to graduates beginning May 24. Detailed information for all the students graduating May 7-9 is available at https://www. Sections: News
